Page 125 of Rescued Heart

Bianca whimpered.

“I know, honey. But I’ve got to get the bleeding stopped.”

Her fingers reached up and grazed his cheek. He wanted to nestle against her touch, but he forced his strength to remain on her wound.

Her hand brushed against his shoulder and dropped against his thigh.

Her eyes closed.

“No. No. No. Stay with me.” He kept his left hand on her wound and reached for her pulse with his right fingers. It was faint. “Come on, Bianca. You got to stay with me.”

Footsteps crunched nearby. Was it the police, or Riley or Kelson coming back to finish them? Either way, he wasn’t leaving Bianca. Not this time.

A bouncing light landed on his chest. “Rice’s been shot.” Ridge’s hushed voice echoed over Eddie’s own heartbeat.

His crew was somehow there, not the police.

Eddie glanced down at the light on his chest. Blood stained his white undershirt, but it must have come from Bianca.

“I’m not shot. Bianca is.”

The light landed on Bianca—her pale face, her eyes still closed. Blood-stained neck. She needed a miracle.

Ridge slid to a stop right beside him, and Zack dropped on the opposite side.

Bryce set a stretcher next to Bianca. “On three, we lift and slide. Then we’re racing out of here. One. Two. Three,” Bryce commanded.

Eddie kept pressure on her wound until his team lifted the board.

Bryce shifted to the opposite end of the backboard. “Fast yet steady is going to win the race today.”

They sprinted along the gravel as more and more red and blue lights appeared in the sky. “How did you even know to come for me?”

“Someone at dispatch messaged me. They knew it was you and knew we were the closest,” Zack said from his hold of the stretcher, down by Bianca’s feet.

Flashlights headed toward them. A dog barked in the distance. Someone raced right at them.

The headlights gave Macon a silhouette appearance. “Where’s…”

“He’s here, Chief,” Bryce answered. “Bianca’s been hit.”

Macon slid in across from Eddie, and the weight lifted out of Eddie’s hands. “Ambo’s not here yet, but we’ll load her up in the truck. Get her to the hospital.”

A police car pulled around the corner, and gravel slid behind tires as the car stopped. Olivia hopped out, gun in her palms. “What have we got?”

Macon put his hand over the top of Eddie’s on Bianca’s wound. “I’ll get her loaded. You give the police what they need.”

As much as he hated it, his chief was right.

Eddie swallowed. He had to let her go. But for the right reasons this time.

She’s in Your hands, Lord.

She always had been.

He released his hold on Bianca, and Macon took over.

Eddie jogged to Olivia. “Riley, the makeup artist from the film set, and her brother Kelson fled, probably to the main cabin up the curve. Both armed. Riley shot Bianca. I think Kelson may have killed Roger Pointe. Last I saw, his body was on the porch. Roger’s girlfriend, Janice, the mayor’s assistant, might be tied up in the cabin. Or dead too. I don’t know. She might have killed Nathan Kensington. There are smaller cabins in various building stages. That’s how I managed a callout. I got a signal by one. Riley has at least a truck on location.”

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